YouTube Removes Over 1.8 Million Videos in Automated Purge

YouTube, a popular online video-sharing platform for people of all ages, has been plagued by numerous malicious users who disrupt the experience for regular users and even pose potential harm. In an effort to combat this issue, YouTube recently announced that it has taken strict measures to address the problem. From January to March 2023, the platform has successfully eliminated more than 1.9 million videos that violated YouTube’s Community Guidelines, adhering to their enforcement guidelines.

At the same time, YouTube also took action elsewhere. Here are the highlights of video removal operations worldwide:

• YouTube removed over 6.48 million videos for violating community rules.
• More than 93% of these videos were first reported by machines rather than by humans.
• Of the videos detected by the machines, 38% were removed before they received a single view, and 31% received 1-10 views before being removed.
• This means that more than 69% of offending videos first detected by machines received less than 10 views before being removed from YouTube.
• YouTube removed more than 8.7 million channels in the first quarter of 2023 for violating community rules. Most of these channels were closed for violating our spam policies, including but not limited to scams, misleading metadata or thumbnails, and video and comment spam.
• In the first quarter of 2023, YouTube removed more than 853 million comments, most of which were spam. Over 99% of deleted comments were detected automatically.

YouTube says that over the years it has invested heavily in the policies and products needed to protect YouTube users. It says that training efforts have been successful in reducing the number of content creators who unintentionally violate our policies. YouTube will notify these violators that they have violated the rules by issuing a one-time warning for the first violation. This gives creators a chance to review what went wrong before they face further penalties. The result has been exceptional, as more than 80% of content producers who have received a warning never violate the policies again.

To continue the initiative, YouTube says it’s taking another step that it says will benefit millions of creators while maintaining policies and systems that protect the community. Starting today, creators will have the option to attend a training course when they receive a Community Rules warning. These resources provide new ways for content creators to understand how they can avoid uploading content that violates our policies in the future.